PhysPort Use and Growth: Supporting Physics Teaching with Research-based Resources Since 2011

PhysPort (www.physport.org) has become the go-to place for physics educators to learn to apply research-­based teaching and assessment in their classrooms. Usage (defined as the total number of visits) has doubled every two years since the site was released in 2011, and 20% of all U.S. physics faculty and 7% of U.S. high school physics teachers are now verified educators on PhysPort. The lead author conceived of PhysPort in 2007 after meeting many physics instructors interested in incorporating results of physics education research (PER) in their classrooms but with no idea where to start. At the time, most PER results were only available in research journals, which required instructors’ time and effort to find articles and read them, and there was no central place to learn about results and implications for classroom practice. Throughout its development, PhysPort has been based on user research: PhysPort staff interview physics instructors about their needs, design the site based on those needs, and conduct usability testing to see how they meet those needs. PhysPort is a joint product of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and Kansas State University (K-State), with contributions from many universities, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and a library within the ComPADRE.org digital library. The site (originally called the PER User’s Guide) was first funded by an NSF grant in 2009 and released in November 2011. This article presents an overview of resources on PhysPort, discussion of research and development of the site, and data on the continuing growth of site usage.